As I write this Fort McMurray, Alberta is burning. My twitter and Facebook feeds are full of images of terror and heartbreak, as a wildfire tares through the community and tens of thousands for people (currently estimated at 80,000) are displaced. It breaks my heart and it has me (as with many of you) wondering, how can I help? The reality is that our compassion and zeal to lend a hand can often cause more harm than good. I love how our communities rally and step up to provide in a time of need, please take a moment to consider how you can best direct your efforts.

I have been fortunate to be able to assist on the ground with disaster relief in communities across Alberta including the Slave Lake fire in 2011 and the Calgary floods in 2013, and I’ve learned that cash donations, even small ones, are by far the most effective way to…

I think I wrote about the following post a while back. I thought it would be interesting to write about it again. I have a copy of this article posted in my cubicle at work. I should mention that I don’t work in theatre but I do have a theatre background. In recent weeks there have been challenges in my work. I am grateful for my flexibility and my versatility and just being able to analyse a situation. Theatre makes one strong on and off the stage.

I mentioned this post to a friend of mine, (another thespian) currently with no ‘day job’. Keeping calm in a crisis is a given for a theatre person. So is courage. Challenges for a theatre person is merely an opportunity. We must never forget that. 🙂

Some of you may know this about me, some may not. Despite having spent the last 15 years as a PR & communications professional, my college degree is in theatre. I have never in my life taken a marketing class, or a journalism class, or a business class. Yet, by most measures, I’m enjoying a successful career in business. “So what?” you ask… read on.

I was having a conversation with my friend Sara this week. She’s an actress. Like most actresses, she also has a Day Job that she works to pay the bills between acting jobs. This is the reality for most working actors in LA, New York and the other major centers of the entertainment industry. She was pointing out to me that she viewed her theatre background as a weakness in her Day Job career field, and that it was holding her back. She asked for…

On February 1, 2016 I was told I was no longer allowed to pursue my studies in my desired program. I was never placed on academic probation, I always went to class, I always handed in my assignments on time, and I always followed the universities rules and politics. Let me explain to you why this happened.

In the second semester of my graduating year of high school, I chose to attend Université de Moncton in order to get a teaching degree in my second language so that I could teach French immersion in the Anglophone school district in the province of New Brunswick. I was accepted shortly after applying and was asked to perform a phone interview to assure I was competent in the language in order to succeed at this university. I passed the test and was officially accepted into the Groupe Pont program. Groupe Pont is a…

It’s Day 3 of the Jian Ghomeshi trial, the first witness has been discredited already and we’ve now moved right along on to number 2.

During the time the story broke that he was being fired from the CBC as sexual assault accusations came to light, every woman I spoke to about it was deeply disturbed. Deeply disturbed. Every woman. No matter her age, level of Q fandom, political leanings and/or lifestyle, this story, of all news stories, had knocked the wind out of her. She couldn’t get it out of her head. Couldn’t stop thinking. Things were coming back to her. Feelings, and questions, about interactions she’d buried in the subterranean sludge of her mind for years. Interactions that were flooding her now. She couldn’t breathe.

I’ve been degraded, I’ve been humiliated, I’ve been coerced, I’ve been pressured, I’ve been guilt-tripped, I’ve been taken advantage of, I’ve had my humanity…

It’s been five days since Bill 6 passed third reading, four days since it was given royal assent, and it’s already majorly affecting farmers and ranchers across Alberta. If you haven’t read my first article, please do.1

I’m not a farmer or rancher and never grew up in the rural community, but I have a great appreciation for all the hard work they do. I write this in the hopes that the urban community would see the severity of Bill 6 and may stand in unity with rural Albertans.

Farmers and ranchers have been an independent community for over 120 years. Their roots go deep. It is so sad to see what’s happening to Alberta’s agricultural history: a major part of our thriving economy. Historically, the government has used the divide between urban and rural Alberta to its advantage by “pleasing” either one or the other. This isn’t right:…

Canada is in the midst of marking the centenary of the Great War of 1914-1918. The war which engulfed the Dominion of Canada was to have dramatic effects on the young, barely decade-old province of Alberta. By 1914 Alberta boasted a greatly expanded population of 470,000 of whom more than 49,000 served in Canada’s armed forces. Of that number over 6,000 died and another 20,000 suffered non-fatal casualties.

On the eastern boundary of Alberta’s capital City of Edmonton the coal mining community of Beverly was incorporated as a Village in 1913 and elevated to the status of Town in July of 1914. Just prior to Canada’s entry into the Great War, Beverly had a population of 1,200, attracting residents from across

Fox aroused suspicion after achieving a statistically-impossible, perfect record on the site under the username NoChicken.

Authorities found an unusually worn copy of a sports almanac which was just recently printed and which has markings cataloging winning bets Fox has placed since the late 80’s.

“The operating theory is that the Back to the Future films were really documentaries from an original, prime timeline,” said NASA astrophysicist Barry Manilow. “The implications are heavy. It is suspected that we are living in an alternate 2015, as there are no flying cars and there are only four Jaws movies. We can only assume that we are forever stunted as a society. The amount of lives lost due to our lack of progress in technology and medicine is unfathomable. Worst of all, instead of hoverboards, this sad reality is limited to the Swagway.”

Imagine this. You are walking down the mall and you see Santa with a huge line up of children awaiting their chance to meet him. You feel excited, your entrepreneur brain starts tingling and you think ” I could do that”. You immediately drop your shopping bags, run up to Santa, rip off his beard, push him out of the chair and say ” I’m Santa now Biatch!”. You take all his elves, give them a pay cut, raise the price of a photo to fifty nine dollars with a gluten free cookie and break up with Mrs. Claus.

Its hard to imagine isn’t it? Why would you do this to Santa Claus? Events like these do happen and when it does, it feels like Santa has been screwed over!

Chances are in your life, you have had an idea stolen from you, a client taken from you, an employee…